Culinary Characters Unlocked

Chef Rochelle Daniel survived an almost brutal kitchen culture on the way up to hone her innovative fine dining skills. Her husband Michael Hopper brings that same creativity to cocktails and immersive hospitality. Together they are redefining fine dining in Flagstaff, Arizona. Her advice to any would-be chef: Forget culinary school. Find a mentor and learn on the job.

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After growing up in New Mexico and diving deep into southwestern cuisine, Chef Nick Zocco went to work for Bobby Flay in Las Vegas. A decade later, he went on Bobby’s TV show, Beat Bobby Flay, and did just that, winning with a crab stuffed chili relleno. That dish is now a favorite at the Salt Lake City restaurant where Chef Zocco says he is surprising local diners with inventive dishes they’ve never had before like lamb tartare.

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When Joanne Chang was hired as pastry chef at one of Christopher Myers’s restaurants, the connection was instant. Years later, friendship turned into marriage. Along the way they built a celebrated restaurant group in Boston— eleven bakery-restaurant combos, then a pan Asian place that grew out of her upbringing as the child of Taiwanese immigrants and offers a unique cross-cultural menu.

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Chef Loryn Nalic married into a Bosnian family in St. Louis and fell in love with their food. She explored it further, traveling to Bosnia and the surrounding Balkans region, even cooking in the kitchens of women she met in local markets, before she, her husband, and his brother opened the Balkan Treat Box food truck, then transitioned it into a brick and mortar restaurant. And with the profits from their business, they were able to reunite the family with their Bosnian relatives displaced by war.

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2026 James Beard Best Chef Northwest & Pacific Ryan

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Katie Reicher runs the kitchen at one of the most historically important vegetarian restaurants in America, Greens in San Francisco. But she insists she’s cooking for everybody, that her vegetarian food is about great flavors, not necessarily eating healthy, and certainly not about depriving yourself. She also points out that Oreos are vegan.

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Chef David Bancroft got into the food biz early, selling jerky to his classmates in elementary school until he got busted by a teacher.

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Kyle and Amanda Lussier spent five years overcoming challenges to open their own restaurant, The Pines. And speaking of challenges, they did it in a small northern Minnesota town where they admit they’ve had to educate the locals about fine dining. But now they’ve developed a devoted following with a menu of not just classics, but also innovative dishes such as “cauliflower three ways” and tempura battered walleye. And less than a year after opening, Kyle received a James Beard Award nomination in the emerging chef category.

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Mesmerized by the chefs see saw on TV, chef Melissa Perello fell in love with cooking as a child. Her mom still talks about the leg of lamb she made from a cooking show recipe when she was 8 years old! After attending the Culinary Institute of America, she rose through the ranks of fine dining in San Francisco, even winning a Michelin star, before deciding great food could be comfortable, approachable, and casual. And she proves it every day at her own restaurants, Frances and Octavia. She even invented bacon

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Their Washington state restaurant boasts of doing farm to table since 1986 and is credited with helping define Pacific Northwest Cuisine. It even has its own farm, and what they don’t grow there they get from a network of trusted local producers and foragers. When we talked in early Spring their remarkable seasonal tasting menu was spotlighting local specialties ranging from sturgeon to polenta to a Walla Walla sweet onion

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